I will note that with a party of just Abdel, it was very hard to get Black Talon Elites to spawn (and it was just a lone Black Talon when it did, see below). I'm not entirely sure of the factors in the spawn mechanics, but it seems that party power (e.g., party size and/or level) may have an effect on what is spawned and the numbers spawned.

I have never played this game solo with only 1 character.

So that is my question to those of you who have done that. Is that "satisfying", fighting one single Black Talon? Is that "fun" when it even seems hard in the first place to get that one single Black Talon spawned?

The random spawn setup is unchanged from BG. In Larswood, there are 13 spawn points:

Black Talon Elites are possible from 5 of them. In no case are they exclusive--they're 1/2 possibilities on one, and 1/4 on the others.

Gibberlings are possible in 7 spawn points, 3 exclusively.

Peldvale has 13 spawn points as well:

Black Talon Elites are possible from 10 of them. As in Larswood, none of these are exclusive--two are 1/2, one is 1/3, and the rest are 1/4.

Gibberlings are possible in 4 spawn points, none exclusively.

Spawn points generate their monsters when you approach (usually with a 15% chance to generate nothing), so approaching from a reload will cause the dice to shift. So yes, if you died to a pack of BTEs then odds are you won't have them when you return--even on the handful of points that have them as 1/2, the overall spawn probability is only 85%. So returning to these spawn points will net you 15% nothing, 42.5% other monster, 42.5% BTE. For most of their spawn points, return visits will net you 15% nothing, 63.75% other monsters, and 21.25% BTE. This isn't the game 'dumbing down' for you, it's simple probability that you don't get BTEs on a reload.

Spawn points didn't work in Tutu and BGT--I had to write the first version of awful scripting to simulate them instead--and IIRC it was because the internal calculation of the BG2 engine was off by a factor of 100 so you always got one enemy. That is the one fix we made for random spawns (and it was there for the initial release) and it allows us to use the original BG spawn data. I can't think of anywhere we've changed the actual spawn point contents.

@CamDawg - Just curious, but how are the number of spawns calculated? The formula in the IESDP does appear to be incorrect. Party size certainly seems to be important, as I consistently got 1 Black Talon or 2 Bandits with just Abdel, but 6 of either with a full party.

The spawn point (AR2400 #1), does have a max of 6 spawns, so that must limit the max.

take all of your party membersget their average levels and add them togetherif the spawnpoint is set to scale to the difficulty scale the resultcheck the difficulty of the spawn pointcheck the maximum number of creatures the spawn point can spawnif the spawnpoint is set to random spawn a random group-check the difficulty of the first group to spawn-if its less than the difficulty of your group add the groups difficulty to a tracker and start the group-for each creature in the group spawn one and add its xp value to the tracker-set the lifespan of the creature to whatever the spawnpoint says-if the tracker after any creature is greater than the difficulty stop spawning-remove one from the count of creatures spawned-if the group is done and the tracker is still below the difficulty start the next groupif it is not set to spawn a random group-do the same as above, but do not remove one from the count of creatures spawned

please note: this function is 230 lines long and contains a few nested loops, so I cant be 100% sure how much madness is in there

I just went back to Larswood and Pelvdale on a new run and this time Black Talons turned up in both places. I was soloing again and as @AstroBryGuy suggests it seems to be that when you are alone only one will spawn at a particular point.

Well, what Seth wrote is technically correct, more or less.But... the part about this:-if the tracker after any creature is greater than the difficulty stop spawning-remove one from the count of creatures spawnedIs just spawning creatures one by one, until their cumulative difficulty reaches the predetermined rate.This rate depends on a lot of crap, like the total levels of the party, the difficulty of the spawnpoint, the difficulty of the game, etc. The spawngroup spawning has the same logic, but uses the spawngroup difficulty (from the 2da), instead of the creature's own difficulty rating.

So would changing the difficulty to Insane, but turning off difficulty-based damage and difficulty-based XP, be a way to get more spawns with core rules? I like using those settings in IWDEE but I was never clear if it would work similarly in BGEE (or BG2EE).

So that is my question to those of you who have done that. Is that "satisfying", fighting one single Black Talon? Is that "fun" when it even seems hard in the first place to get that one single Black Talon spawned?

No! But that's also not how it's supposed to work, as far as I remember*. Spawns should be based on the CHARNAME level only, but in Enhanced Edition I am 90% sure they are also based on party size.

In fact, I used to do a little trick when soloing in EE: accept an NPC into your party, level them up then kill them - but leave them in your party still dead. This way you get the party size and average level factors both up, which results in more difficult spawns, while still keeping the game solo.

There was also a mod someone made that makes spawns scale with just the CHARNAME level, but the execution was less than ideal - normally creatures spawn just out of your line of sight, but when using the mod they often spawned in your line of sight.

As far as difficulty goes, I think this only affects new content from Beamdog, because I think original games(especially BG1/2, less sure about ToB) did not scale spawns with difficulty.

* - admittely, most of what I remember about the BG is from TuTu, which was its own brand of craziness... Dread Wolves or 3x Black Bear spawns straight out of Candlekeep sure was something.